Gear
Middle-earth: Shadow of War introduces some RPG costumization mechanics in the form of "Gear", which functions like equipment pieces that affects Talion's performance and abilities and offer wide selection in gameplay approach. Gear is forged whenever a captain is killed. The level and quality of the gear is determined by the level and title of the captain when they are killed. Categories There are eight types of gear and six gear slots, each for a specific types of gear. Swords determine the damage dealt by Talion's basic attacks, Counters, Executions and Glaive Attack. Sword also tend to have special effects relating to open, melee combat. Daggers determine damage dealt Stealth and Ground Executions. Daggers tend to have effects relating to Stealth Kills and Quick Throw. Hammers, Bows and, Longbows all fit in the ranged slot and determine the damage of Ranged Attacks, including Power Shot. Ranged weapons tends to have effects related to the effects of their projectile, or bonuses gained from hitting enemies with them. Ranged equipment have varying ammunition limit, which may increase when the gear is leveled up. Each type of Ranged weapon differs in their charged effects: *'Bows' do not have special property to their Charged Shots. While this might seems like an obsolete quality, it makes the bow the safest option for both stealth and ally-assisted combat as the projectiles would only affect the targeted opponent. *'Longbows' '''charged projectile pierces through the target and hits anyone and anything further beyond within its trajectory. While it could be used to hit multiple opponents, careless use could inflict friendly fire or even causing unwanted Grog barrel explosion. *'Hammers'' charged projectile causes an AoE blast that staggers enemies around the impact. The blast is indiscriminate towards Talion's allies and enemies alike and easily blows Talion's cover. Hammer's charged headshots are also strong enough to knock Uruk captains off their foot '''Armor' determines the player's maximum Health and tends to have effects that are related about receiving damage, immunities, and perks that becomes active after taking damage. Cloaks determine how stealthy the player is and tend to have effects related to stealth. Runes are only unlocked after recovering the New Ring and determine the player's maximum focus. It's special effects tend to relate to Followers. Upgrade and Modification Scaled Upgrade In the latest patch for Shadow of War, all weapons that are below Talion's level and currently have no uncompleted challenge can be upgraded by spending Mirian. The equipment will automatically have its basic attribute scaled to the appropriate level, while special properties of Rare, Epic and Legendary gears will remain the same. Destroying Gears Gears, with the exception of Unique Legendary sets and Talion's starting gear, can be destroyed and exchanged with Mirian. Being mindful of this mechanic is helpful in keeping steady supply of currency and preventing the player's inventory from being littered with unneccesary gears Gem Stone Each gear slot has corresponding gemstone slot that adds useful effects to help Talion's performance. These gemstones are divided into Warrior Gem, which gives attack boosts related effects. Life gem, which has health-increasing and health-stealing effect. And Wealth gem, which gives various bonuses depending on which slot its put in. Gems can be looted from treasure-carrying Uruks or being collected as rewards from doing missions. Gemstones are also available in different grades from Regular, Carved, Polished, Refined and Perfect, in descending order. Higher grades gems gives greater effects, but are more difficult to obtain. Player can create a higher grade gem by sacrificing three gems of one rank below it. This means, to create one Perfect Gem alone, players need to collect 81 Regular grade gems of the same type. Sword Breakers When Talion is killed by an Olog-hai, there is a chance that the Olog will break Talion's sword, rendering it inaccessible. However, when the Olog that broke the sword is killed, Talion can recover it, and it will be upgraded by 5 levels from before it was broken. Swords can be broken and reforged any number of times, but it will not be upgraded past level 70. Types of Gear Common Common gears are loot from ordinary Nemesis. Common gears only have basic attributes and lack any special properties. They have no actual advantage against Rare, Epic and Legendary gears beside the fact that they do not have any prerequisite Challenge necessary to be completed before they're liable for Scaled Upgrade. Rare and Epic Rare and Epic gears are looted from Rare and Epic Nemesis. Rare and Epic Gears have special properties that can be unlocked by accomplishing a challenge necessary to unlock the effect, with Rare gear having one effect and Epic gear having two effects. The gear has to be equipped when accomplishing said challenges for the game to consider it as completed. After the challenge is complete, the gear then can be upgraded for the first time, unlocking its potential while also having its level increased. Completing a Rare/Epic gear challenge also makes it liable for Scaled Upgrade. Legendary Legendary Gears are powerful gears with unique and predetermined powers which, unlike other type of gears, are not randomly generated. Each Legendary gear has one unique property, meaning said property cannot be substituted or found in any other gear, and one common property, which can be found in randomly generated Rare and Epic Gear and can be re-rolled. Each Legendary gears have a set of 3 Challenges, each upgrading the gear to level 20, 40 and lastly level 60, from which the Legendary gear becomes viable for Scaled Upgrade. Each level of Challenge upgrade completed improves the power of a Legendary gear's unique property. If a Legendary gear is looted above any level of Challenge, the challenge would be skipped, and the gear would have its special property grade set to the appropriate level. All Legendary gears are part of separate sets. Wearing 2 pieces of the same set would grant a bonus property to Talion, while wearing 4 pieces would grant another one along with the 2-pieces bonus. Legendary Gear Acquisition Tribe Sets When a legendary captain is killed, they drop gear that's part of a set specific to their tribe. The category of gear dropped is dependent on the Advanced Class of the captain, with each tribe set varying in prerequisites. Note that the requirement to attain these gears is that a legendary captain has to be killed in your presence, regardless if its an ally or enemy. Dying in fight pits, or being Captains in Online Vendetta and Online Conquest counts towards attaining these legendary gears. The upgrades of all Tribe legendary gears involve recruiting any Nemesis of the corresponding tribe of a certain level in a descending order: level 20, level 40 and finally level 55. Unique Sets There are a few Legendary sets that are not gained by killing legendary captains, and are instead acquired through other means. 'Bright Lord's Set' The Bright Lord's set gears can be attained by opening Ithildin Doors and Completing "Shadow of the Past" Quest. Its upgrade challenge involves recruiting Nemesis of fixed levels, from level 20, 40 and lastly level 55. Note: any mention of "Elven Rage" can be substituted for the new ultimate ability gained at the end of act 3. 'Vengeance Set' This set's gears must be obtained by successfully doing specified feats in Online Vendetta missions, and the upgrades follow this convention, with requirements on increasing level of target the higher the upgrade level. This set's gear is thus unobtainable when playing offline. 'Nazgul Set' This set is obtained by finishing the story's final chapters The Nazgul set has two options for the Armor slot, and several options for the Cloak slot. Blade of Galadriel Gear is managed differently in the Blade of Galadriel DLC , with the whole DLC being basically a more streamlined experience than Shadow of War's main campaign. For one, randomly generated gear, re-rolls and scaled upgrade does not exist and are instead replaced with fixed gear pieces that sclaes to a predetermined level. Gear cannot be destroyed. Mirian and Conventional Gem Stones are also absent in the DLC. Eltariel's ranged weapon roster is composed of only one type of bow which functions similarly to Talion's regular bow. Light Gems The three type of modification gem in Shadow of War are replaced by a single type of Light Gem which gives different augmentation depending on the slots they are equipped in. Since it is the only type of Gem, creating 6 Perfect specimens and equipping each to a slot is the definite peak improvement to Eltariel's performance. Sets Elven Huntress Set '''is Eltariel's startring gear and the lowest scaled set in the DLC, starting at level 25 and rise to level 30 when upgraded. It gives Eltariel several basic skills that can be useful for early enemies and grunts. '''Fire Chaser Set '''revolves around fire element and Might, and the upgrade challenges involve feats of defeating and sabotaging enemy that are on fire. Each piece is obtained from killing one of Six Legendary Feral Uruks in Gorgoroth. The gear scales at level 30 and upgrades into level 35. '''Ice Stalker's set focuses on Ice and on a lesser degree, Curse. The upgrade challenges thus revolves around sabotaging and defeating Frozen enemies. Each piece is held by a Legendary Marauder Uruk in Seregost. The gears start at level 30 and gets to level 35. Beast Hunter's Set focuses on killing and dominating Beasts of Mordor. Challenges for upgrades involve killing beasts, or using them to your advantage. Each piece is kept by a Legendary Machine Uruk in Cirith Ungol. The gears are looted at level 30 and scales to level 35 once upgraded. Serpent Tamer's Set: This set focuses on poison and Might gain. Challenges involving poisoning enemies and killing enemies that are poisoned. Each Piece is kept by a Legendary Dark Uruk in Nurnen. The gears are looted at level 30 and upgrades into level 35. Light Bringer's Set: The Light Bringer's set focuses on enhancing Elatriel's Light abilities to a deadlier degree. It is the highest scaled gear set in the DLC, looted at level 35 and upgrades into level 40, thus also giving them the highest basic attribute over all attainable gears. Attaining the Ligh Bringer's Gear involve defeating all Legendary Uruks in the DLC, which cluminates in a duel against Ratak the Lawless. The gear is very useful in the final fights of the DLC, as all other aspect and elements enhanced by othe gears (Fire, Frost, Poison and Beast) are useless against the Nazgul. Desolation of Mordor The second story expansion deviates further from the main campaign, removing equipment variety, Gemstones and conventional upgrade altogether while implementing the Augmentation system. Baranor, like Talion and Eltariel, has his six attributes governed by six part of gear loadout, but players can't find new gears to modify or enhance his combat performance and instead must improve them through Augmentations, which are upgrades and modifiers that can be looted from Captains, treasure Uruks and bodies of Uruks in the field. Each gear can hold up to 8 types of Augmentations, and each augmentations are especially set for a type of gear. Augmentations themselves can be divided roughly into two types: *The common Augmentation which enhance the basic attribute boost a gear governs. These Augmentations are stackable, meaning duplicates will instead enhance the existing ones when applied and do not take up new slots. *Epic and Legendary Augmentations cover a wide variety of Augmentation that could either add, modify or change the property of Baranor's ability and/or attributes. These Augmentation could have effects that completely enhance Baranor's performance, or have extreme effects that while can be very useful, also comes with setbacks (eg. Cutting Baranor's health in half, removing damage from Steel Bolts). Category:Middle-earth: Shadow of War